US coronavirus cases surge to highest level in 2 months

People wait outside a barber shop as New York moves into phase 2 of re-opening following restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic on June 23, 2020. (Getty Images/AFP)

• The US reported 34,700 new cases of the virus, according to a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University
• Worldwide, more than 9.2 million people have contracted coronavirus

BEIJING: New coronavirus cases in the US have surged to their highest level in two months and are now back to where they were at the peak of the outbreak.
The US on Tuesday reported 34,700 new cases of the virus, according to a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University that was published Wednesday. There have been only two previous days that the US has reported more cases: April 9 and April 24, when a record 36,400 cases were logged.
New cases in the US have been surging for more than a week after trending down for more than six weeks. While early hot spots like New York and New Jersey have seen cases steadily decrease, the virus has been hitting the south and west. Several states on Tuesday set single-day records, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas.
In the US state of Arizona, which on Tuesday reported a record 3,600 new infections, hundreds of young conservatives packed a megachurch to hear President Donald Trump’s call for them to back his reelection bid.
As he did at a rally in Oklahoma over the weekend, Trump referred to the virus with a pejorative term directed at its emergence in China.
Ahead of the event, the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, made clear that she did not believe the speech could be safely held in her city — and urged the president to wear a face mask. He did not. Trump has refused to wear a mask in public, instead turning it into a red-vs.-blue cultural issue.
Earlier Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress that the next few weeks are critical to tamping down the surge.
“Plan A, don’t go in a crowd. Plan B, if you do, make sure you wear a mask,” said Fauci, the infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health.
Worldwide, more than 9.2 million people have contracted the virus, including more than 477,000 who have died, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.